


may we meet again

by atlas (songs)



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 02:32:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6593071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs/pseuds/atlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gon orbits in and out of everyone’s lives like a comet. <i>Oh, I spotted him a summer ago. Oh, we had tea, last April. Oh, I saw him climbing one of the old, ruby-mountains, deep in the forests of Azian, but it could have been someone else.</i></p><p><i>Best friends.</i> What is a friendship? Is it a longing, yearning thing, bloated with absence, gutted by the unsaid? Is it constant? Is there permanence? Do they always start so beautiful? Do friendships ever end at all?</p>
            </blockquote>





	may we meet again

**1.**

 

Killua Zoldyck sits at the corner-table of a small coffee-shop— _Andromeda Café—_ a quiet, listless place, tucked along the border of Yorbian. He takes a sip of his drink— hot and syrup-sweet— and fiddles with the cup— an awkward, uncharacteristic habit that doesn’t quite suit him. It’s eleven A.M., and the moon is already out— or, rather, it’s _been_ up, and will remain as such. _Badr City_ is a tiny, mystic place that lives under the ruse of permanent nights, due to a nen-accident, some twenty odd years ago. Now, it’s a pretty, dreamlike tourist spot. _Twenty Four Hours of Starlight!_ the postcards say. Killua wishes all nen-accidents could end this way. The last one he’d ever seen left a crater in the earth, a sickly ghost in place of a boy.

 

His sister sits across from him. Alluka has that look on her face— like there’s something she wants to say, but she isn’t sure if she’s ready to say it.

 

Killua finally sighs. “Spill.”

 

Alluka glares at him, her brows knitting, her eyelashes mascara-long.

 

“Onii-chan,” she says, in a lilting soprano. “What do you want?”

 

“Like, with my coffee? I was hoping cake, or maybe _tiramisu_ —”

 

“ _Killua_ ,” Alluka interrupts, voice stern. “You know what I mean.”

 

And he does. Alluka’s stare remains firm, unwavering. She’s grown so much, Killua thinks, and so quickly. It leaves him feeling breathless, and maybe a bit lost. She fits seamlessly into the strange, beautiful world around her. She no longer needs him to point out street-signs, or to explain the meanings behind certain idioms or customs. Alluka Zoldyck no longer sees the universe as a dream-thing— it’s real, palpable, just within her reach—and Killua could not be happier. Could not want anything more.

 

But Alluka keeps insisting, anyway. “What do you want?”

 

“I want,” Killua says, his throat dry. “For us to keep doing what we’re doing. Seeing the world. Traveling to places we’ve only heard in stories. Eating new foods in new cities and sleeping in a different town every week. I want everything to stay the same.”

 

Alluka shakes her head. “Onii-chan. I’m sixteen years old.”

 

Killua swallows. “I know.”

 

“It’s been five years,” she tells him.

 

“And?”

 

“You don’t want to travel the world with me,” she murmurs, softly. “You think you do. But this isn’t how everything’s supposed to be. I want to stay with Palm. I want her to train me, so I can grow strong. The world is beautiful, but I’ve already seen so much. I’ve been to so many places. But you know what’s always the same?”

 

“The bad wifi?” Killua tries to joke.

 

“How sad you look,” Alluka tells him. “When you see anything that reminds you of _before._ ”

 

She does not say ‘of _him_ ’ and for that Killua is grateful.

 

“I’m not sad,” Killua argues. “I text— my friends. All the time. And I have you. You make me happy. Of course you do— you’re my family, and I love you.”

 

“I love you too,” Alluka soothes. “Which is why I’m begging you— _please_ settle it.”

 

Killua’s eyes narrow. “Alluka?”

 

“It’s not right,” she says, “to spend all your life hiding from someone you love.”

 

“I’m not hiding,” Killua says. “I never hide.”

 

Alluka only sighs, sadly. Killua, in turn, sips at his drink.

 

It’s gone cold.

 

**2.**

 

 _I just want to see you again,_ Killua does not say.

 

 _I miss knowing you,_ he bites back.

 

It’s been a year since Gon’s messages stopped coming. Before that, they had several seasons’ worth of awkward phonecalls, of prolonged, static-laden silences. Somewhere along the line, Gon’s voice changed, along with his goals. _I’m not trying to get my Nen back, anymore. It’s gone. All gone._

Killua returns to Whale Island once, when he is sixteen— and only once. Gon isn’t there, but Mito-san is. She doesn’t know where he’s gone off to, but she’s happy to see Killua all the same.

 

 _He’s kind of like his father,_ she admits to him, over tea and cakes. Alluka is listening, and Killua’s hands are shaking something awful. But he doesn’t interrupt Mito-san, when she goes on, _There’s always a connection. I believe that. But sometimes you really have to squint to see it._

Killua knows that. During the years he and Gon spent together, the latter boy had always been facing forward, rather than looking back. New people, new mission, new adventures. Gon Freecss was not a homesick child. Sometimes, Killua had wondered if any place could truly ever be Gon’s _home._ It seemed too weighty a concept, heavy in all the ways that never quite suited an enigma like Gon.

 

 _I thought you abandoned me, once,_ Killua never tells him. _But I never meant to abandon you._

 

When Mito tells Killua and his sister that they’re always welcome to Whale Island, always welcome here at _home,_ Killua’s heart stammers a bit.

 

Alluka is the one to say it, on the ship-ride to Padokea.

 

“We’re never seeing her again,” she murmurs, “now are we?”

 

**3.**

In the end, Alluka does stay with Palm, who for whatever reason, is staying with Bisky. His old master is absolutely delighted, waxing on and on about the unending girly, gossip-filled slumber parties that were to come. Killua tells Alluka, point-blank, that it’s perfectly understandable if she’s changed her mind about this whole training idea. He feels unbearably guilty at the thought of leaving his precious little sister in the ‘care’ of two of the most violent people he’s ever encountered in his eighteen years of life.

 

But Alluka only beams. “I’m happy here, alright? You go on and be happy, too.”

 

 _But I am happy,_ he thinks, and it’s not really a lie. His sister makes him happy. Sweets make him happy. Triggering city-wide power outages makes him happy. But—

 

 _You need to stop living only for other people,_ Alluka had told him, one night.

 

 _You’re telling me to go out and find him, though,_ Killua had argued. _So isn’t that just the same?_

_I’m telling you to go and face your feelings,_ Alluka had said. _For you. They’re yours, You can’t lock them away forever. They never did anything wrong. And there’s nothing worse than locking things away._

 

 

**4.**

_No matter where we go, we’ll always be friends._

Killua wonders if it’s true. Friendships have never been his forte— he’s met many people over the years, and gets along well with most everyone. There’s also Leorio, who checks in often, and Kurapika, who Killua at least knows is alive, by Paladiknight Proxy ™, which is always a relief. Then there is the constellation of connections he’d made in the span of a year, of nearly two. _Back then, you had lived a lifetime in a thimble. Centuries in only months._

Gon orbits in and out of everyone’s lives like a comet. _Oh, I spotted him a summer ago. Oh, we had tea, last April. Oh, I saw him climbing one of the old, ruby-mountains, deep in the forests of Azian, but it could have been someone else._

_Best friends._ What is a friendship? Is it a longing, yearning thing, bloated with absence, gutted by the unsaid? Is it constant? Is there permanence? Do they always start so beautiful? Do friendships ever end at all?

 

“I’m so tired of chasing you,” Killua says to the empty fields ahead. “But I’m even more tired of running away.”

 

 _Are you, though?_ Killua muses. _Are you?_

**5.**

 

He finds it in a dusty hotel-room. A Hunter’s License, worn and faded. But the name is unmistakable. One Killua could never forget.

 

It gleams under the naked lamplight, on the bedside table. Killua, however, doesn’t fret. Doesn’t stop breathing, doesn’t bolt and stumble.

 

_I’m not trying to get my Nen back, anymore. It’s gone. All gone._

Killua considers pocketing it. He could get DNA prints, could put his rusty sleuthing skills to the test. He could follow the fingerprint trail across the world, and maybe then, he’d possibly find him. Reach him. Hold him.

 

But he already knows what he’s going to do. He leaves the license on the nightstand, and then pulls out his own, from his back-pocket. It’s immaculate, in comparison to Gon’s. Untouched. Killua hasn’t been a hunter for over half a decade. Just a boy with Nen. Just a boy, traveling with his sister.

 

And he’s been happy.

 

He places his license, just above the other boy’s. _A perfect match,_ he thinks to himself. Leorio’s voice cuts into his thoughts, and adds, _A perfect, 20,000,000 Jenny match, you dolt!_

 

Killua laughs, and steps out of the unused room, leaving his license behind. He’ll find another town to stay in, for the night. He picks up his bag, but finds himself lingering in the doorway— a jolt of memory, like a phantom touch, keeps him rooted there, but only for a moment.

 

To the empty room, he says, gently, “May we meet again.”

 

Then he leaves.

**6.**

Weeks later, Killua awakens in a rickety bed, in the cheap motel of some backwater town. He hears footsteps padding along the wooden floors, but rather than feel alert, or on guard, Killua smiles, and sits up.

 

Two hunter-licenses drop onto the linen blankets. Killua doesn’t have to glance up to know what kind of face Gon is making.

 

“I didn’t think you’d understand,” is the first thing Gon says to Killua, face-to-face, after five years of being apart. “I thought maybe you’d just ignore it, or take it.” When Killua finally looks at him, Gon is licking his pink lips. “But when I went back to the room, and saw that you’d left yours— I knew. I knew seeing you would be okay. That— it wouldn’t be wrong. Y’know?”

 

Killua’s smile slants into a smirk. _I missed you so damn much, you idiot._

 

He says, “I know.”


End file.
